Kidnapping victim freed after ransom is paid

Port-au-Prince, Haiti  An Italian woman kidnapped in Haiti said Friday that she was held for nearly four days in a dark corridor - blindfolded with her hands and feet tied - until her family secured her release by paying a ransom. She was also briefly kidnapped last year.

Gigliolla Martino, 67, said the kidnappers broke into her house Monday and beat her 82-year-old husband and seized her.

She said she only learned Friday after her release that he had died from his injuries.

The armed men who ransacked the couple's villa in Petionville, an upscale suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince, took Martino to a building where she was fed only cookies and a bottle of fruit juice, she said.

She said she spoke to her family by telephone twice and pleaded for help. Her family negotiated the ransom payment, which she would not disclose.

Late Thursday night, the kidnappers released Martino, leaving her shoeless in a supermarket, she said in the interview at her sister's Petionville home.